JAISALMER: At a time when the country is furious over suspension of IAS officer Durga Shakti Nagpal for taking on the sand-mining mafia, a district superintendent of police who dared an influential legislator of the ruling party in Rajasthan has been quietly shunted out to a non-field posting.

IPS officer Pankaj Choudhary, who was the Jaisalmer SP until Friday, has been transferred out allegedly for reopening the history-sheet of Gazi Fakir, the father of local Congress MLA Saleh Mohammad. Jaisalmer residents and traders have given a call for a bandh on Sunday to protest against Chaudhary's transfer.

Fakir, who was allegedly involved in smuggling and anti-social activities along the Indo-Pak international border in the state, had a history-sheet opened against him for the first time on July 31, 1965. The police file, however, went missing in 1984. The history-sheet was reopened six years later in 1990, but it was "illegally" closed in May 2011 by an ASP-rank officer who was then officiating as the district SP.

In the pre-election IAS-IPS reshuffle ordered by the state government on Friday, Chaudhary-who had been the district's SP for barely five months-has been given the new posting of commandant of the Police Training School at Kishangarh (Ajmer).

There were reports that the IPS officer was removed from the field posting owing to pressure from Jaisalmer's Pokhran MLA Saleh Mohammad. The legislator's brother Abdullah Fakir, who is Jaisalmer's elected zila pramukh, denied the allegation.

"My father is now 80 years old. He cannot see and hear properly. There never was a chargesheet against him and there has been no allegation against him in the past three decades. Still the history-sheet has been reopened against him. This shows a political conspiracy is being hatched against us in the election year," Abdullah said. He added, "We will contest the police decision before the high court rather than put pressure to get an officer transferred."

As the district SP, Chaudhary launched campaigns against touts associated with the tourism industry and the local liquor mafia. The police officer had a heated argument with the Pokhran legislator for acting against these organized crimes. "Yes, the MLA had problems with the police's efforts in checking criminal nuisance in the district," Chaudhary confirmed to TOI.